Many devices include interfaces allowing them to communicate with other devices. Such interfaces include different forms of wireless interfaces having different characteristics and capabilities. Examples of such wireless interfaces include cellular radios, WIFI, and Bluetooth. Such wireless interfaces are often included in devices such as personal computers, smartphones, game consoles, and tablets.
Bluetooth is a wireless standard that allows data to be exchanged between devices over short distances. The Bluetooth Smart or Bluetooth 4.0 specification includes Classic Bluetooth (BTC) as well as Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). BTC reflects the traditional implementation of Bluetooth prior to the introduction of BLE, and BTC is supported on many legacy devices that do not support BLE. For example, some older smart phones only support BTC, while newer smartphones support both BTC and BLE.
While both BTC and BLE provide the ability to communicate data between devices, they each have their own advantages and disadvantages. For example, BTC provides higher bandwidth and works well for larger size data transfers. However, while BTC may be able to support transferring large amounts of data corresponding to music, pictures, or phone calls, it normally consumes more power than BLE. BLE provides the ability to send smaller amounts of data in a low-energy manner. While more power efficient for small transfers, BLE is not as secure as BTC, thereby rendering BLE connections more susceptible to eavesdropping. BLE also has a greater physical range than BTC, and therefore can allow communications between devices over greater distances.
In addition to Bluetooth, other wireless interfaces are available that also provide certain advantages and disadvantages. In such wireless interfaces it is often the case that a user can achieve greater data bandwidth at the expense of higher power consumption, more complex hardware for support, and greater cost in general. As portable devices continue to become more complex, more options for transferring data are presented. Therefore, it is desirable to provide techniques to allow for intelligent usage of available communications links on devices to facilitate data transfers in a manner that provides adequate bandwidth with reduced power consumption and cost.